Illustrator || Graphic Novel Artist

I’ve been a bit absent from the on-line world as I’ve been working intensively on my second graphic novel for the past couple of months. If all goes well, so help me God!, by the end of the year it should come out in print. Here are a few sneak-peek pages for you 🙂

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl (Timișoara, 1860– Rome, 1933) was a Hungarian artistknown for historical and mythological painting, particularly of subjects pertaining to ancient Rome. Some of his major history paintings have been lost, and many of his smaller works were retained by his heirs until the early 1980s. Although he was one of the most successful artists of fin-de-siècle Vienna, these circumstances, along with the rise of Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secessionists, put his reputation in eclipse. (source Wikipedia)

I decided to make another post about a lesser known artist, and the more I come across such examples the more I wonder how many other astounding works are unjustly ignored or lost. The painting that brought Hiremy to my attention was the beauty which you can see above.

José Tapiró y Baró – Reus, 1836 – Tanger, 1913. Remarkable exponent of Spanish Orientalism. His work depicts mainly people and scenes from Morocco – where he lived from 1876 until his death – and it is said that in order to have access to community and family events, that allowed him a close and truthful observation of the Moroccan life, he would often disguise himself as a Muslim man or even a Muslim woman.

A short while ago I came across the work of this outstanding but little know artist, Jose Tapiro y Baro, officially my newest artistic crush ❤ My Facebook followers have already been introduced to him but he deserves more exposure.

I’m busily working on a new exciting graphic novel, which I am very anxious to tell you all about very soon! Until then, here are some color practices that I try to do as often as I can. Understanding and mastering color and light is, hands down, the most challenging issue of my practice.

I’ve been getting quite fond of working with watercolors lately 🙂 Also, plain-air studies are unbelievably soothing and therapeutic ❤

As much as I am aware of the clumsiness of my brushstrokes, with real paint and real brushes there doesn’t seem to be the same feeling of pressure weighting me down. Once the brushstroke is laid, in most cases, it is there to stay so all you can do is just enjoy the spontaneity of the process. The creative advantage of this, for me at least, is the fact that it forces me to put extra thought in every decision of color and brushstroke I make, because there is not Ctrl+z to undo it and I also can’t recreate the same images in 10 different style and color schemes, within a matter of hours.

A few days ago I bought myself a nice little box of Windsor & Newton watercolors. I love them, the colors are vibrant and rich, the box is cute, but they have two tiny flaws:

No. 1 – the colors don’t dry very fast and remain a bit too gooey even hours after I stop using them; and because I mainly use them out and about and keep them in my bag, they move around in the box and get stuck to the lid;

No. 2 – there is no black color pan inside!!! And what do you do when life doesn’t give you a black color pan in your watercolor travel box? You effing mix that black yourself! And this takes us to the subject of my little blog post today: colored blacks. This time I’m in a for a longer article because I think some of you might find this info useful.

What are colored blacks, how to mixed them and why to use them? Keep on reading.

Those of you who follow my Facebook page are familiar with my latest illustration, The Helper 🙂

You must also know that I promised a short article about the WIP steps, so here it is.

1. Start with a sketch… and an idea 🙂 I’m not very worried about all the details right now because I know they will show a lot more clearly when I scan the drawing and see it on my screen (the lady in black is a dwarf at this stage).

2. Clean up lines and check proportion and composition… adjust as necessary (lady in black is slowly growing to normal proportions)

3. Explore color schemes (the one below is the only example I remembered to save 😦 )

4. Pick the best one and start adding details… pretty much 🙂 Constantly check that colors match the light, the contrasts and values support the center of attention (knowing how to do that implies that you already have the necessary knowledge of color composition. If you don’t, I’m afraid I can’t go into detail about that right now but will put up an article with helpful resources in the future 🙂 )

Decide what goes in and what goes out as you go along… Here I decided that an extra panel was necessary to show the man’s expression as he gazes upon the mysterious woman.